Britain's Mean Streets

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Batmanghelidjh, who set up the charity in 1996 to support "lone children" growing up without a responsible parent or carer, says that she and her team encounter many British children who have been neglected or abused, leaving them too damaged to benefit from education or training. "The level they're at is just about survival," she says. "The public can't imagine having a daily life that's so empty and exhausting." In such circumstances, girls are often drawn into prostitution. Many have babies while still teenagers, partly to jump queues for social housing but mainly to find some affection. "What do you need to care about if no one loves you?" says Mullins. "If no one has love for you, you aren't going to feel love for other people when you get older."

Batmanghelidjh tends to agree. Love and understanding, she thinks, can transform problem kids into responsible members of society. It's not an idea that appeals to all Britons. Indeed, many British adults seem to view children as an entirely separate species.

Britons have never been very comfortable with the idea of childhood. ("Culturally, Britain just doesn't like children much," says Batmanghelidjh.) In Victorian England, rich children were banished to nurseries and boarding schools, while their poorer contemporaries were sent out to work. The British are still expected to function as adults from an early age. At 8, Scotland has the lowest age of criminal responsibility in Europe, followed by England and Wales, where youngsters answer for their crimes from the age of 10. Yet children venturing into the adult world often feel rebuffed. "I don't get the feeling that Britain is the most child-friendly culture," says Emily Benn, who was selected to contest a seat in Britain's House of Commons three weeks before her 18th birthday. "When you go to France they're nicer to you in restaurants, on the streets and on transport. When I go around Britain on the railways, I get treated like rubbish by guards and officials."

Rapid social change has not helped. Family and community life have been redrawn in most rich countries, and none more so than Britain, where marriage rates are down to a 146-year low. A study in 2000 by the OECD found that British parents spend less time with their children compared to other nationalities, leaving them more open to influence from their peers and a commercially driven, celebrity-obsessed media. Elder Britons too often see their youngsters as a problem. Dominique Jansen, a Dutch mother living in England, says she recently took her two toddlers to her local church. She was startled by sour looks when her younger child asked her for juice. "It was uncomfortable," she says. "We had to leave." "You can see very vivid differences between the U.K. and countries in Europe," says Reitemeier. "You go onto sink estates [poor housing projects] in this country and there isn't a single element designed for children."

Culture Clash
Cold-shouldered by grown-ups, young Britons have developed an especially potent culture of their own. "Young people live in a world with very little meaningful contact or engagement with adults," says Professor Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, who has made a study of the causes of happiness.

This youth culture echoes and magnifies aspects of the adult world around it. Binge-drinking, for example, is hardly the preserve of young Britons. A report by the organization Alcohol Concern noted that one in three British men and one in five women drink double the amount considered safe at least once a week. And, unlike many British sports, this pursuit is popular from the bottom of the social spectrum right to the top. Photographs of Princes William and Harry emerging flushed from nightclubs are tabloid staples.

Last month, the elder prince enjoyed a night at a club in Cornwall, southwestern England, which lures customers with shots of alcohol selling for $2 apiece. Soon after William left, a fellow patron was slashed with a broken bottle. In 2000, Euan Blair, the son of the Prime Minister, was arrested for being "drunk and incapable." "A lot of my friends, if they've worked really hard during the week, go out and get drunk on the weekend," says Claudine Biggs, an 18-year-old London schoolgirl. Biggs has written a play that premiered at a north London theater in February. Her teenage protagonists are dysfunctional and knowing, their cruelty as casual as their sexual relationships, their racy behavior only partially camouflaging palpable misery. There are no adults in the play to intervene or to comfort. For too many British kids, that's not drama; that's real life.